When a Hollywood production house shot a promo for Canon cameras a couple of weeks ago, the footage rolled at St. Vincent Medical Center west of downtown Los Angeles.
The hospital’s entrance was converted into a bus depot and some interiors were filmed. It wasn’t a big shoot, but for Real to Reel Inc. it was welcome anyway.
The Van Nuys agency had arranged for the one-day shoot by Freestyle Picture Co. at a time when its key business of TV dramas is on the decline.
“It’s the episodic dramas that produce a lot of on-location film days,” said Chief Executive Gary Onyshko. “That’s what swings the numbers.”
Location agencies such as his scout properties and represent building owners in negotiations with production companies. Even though on-location production days in the city of Los Angeles and parts of the county are up 6.7 percent through September – fueled in part by California’s $100 million film tax incentive program that started in 2009 – much of that is driven by TV comedy and reality shows that traditionally do not shoot at the commercial properties represented by location services. In fact, Real to Reel’s bookings are down.
TV dramas, which do use location services and can stay on location for weeks, are continuing to flee to other states with richer subsidy programs.
Through September, a record 67 one-hour drama pilots were filmed outside of California, compared with 48 a year earlier. New York state, which recently fattened its subsidies to $420 million, attracted 15, compared with two the previous year, according to Film L.A., the non-profit handles permitting for the city of Los Angeles and parts of the county.
The New York program not only has more money for more productions, but covers up to 30 percent of qualified expenses. California covers up to 25 percent.
That kind of competition has forced Onyshko to market his properties more aggressively, and he’s offering half-day rates to attract lower-budget productions. Most of all, he’s asking property owners to lower their fees.
“By encouraging property owners to be reasonable, we can come close to the financial terms that producers are looking for,” Onyshko said.
Hospital bookings
Real to Reel is one of the biggest location servicves in Los Angeles, representing the owners of Hollywood & Highland Center, Universal CityWalk and other big properties. Its rivals include Cast Locations in Larchmont Village and Universal Locations in Santa Clarita.
St. Vincent Medical Center, where Real to Reel brokers about one shooting a month, offers a prime example of how production shooting has tailed off at one location.
The hospital expects to add $100,000 to its bottom line from filming this year once Real to Reel gets its undisclosed cut of fees. That’s about half what St. Vincent got in 2009, said Jody Spector, a hospital executive who runs the film program.
The reduction is both the result of fewer productions and lower negotiated rates, which Spector said range from $3,000 to $11,000 a day.
“Ten years ago we were more set on our rates. In the last two or so years we’ve been more flexible,” she said.
Tony Salome, a location manager for “NCIS Los Angeles,” said the CBS Television Studios production has benefited from the more realistic stance of property owners.
“We’re getting better deals now than we did in years past,” he said. “People are a lot more flexible and negotiable with their prices than they were 10 years ago.”
Another of Real to Reel’s most popular properties is a closed building at the former Sherman Way campus of the Northridge Medical Center that rents for about $9,000 a day. Last month, that location hosted filming for one-hour dramas including “Body of Proof,” “Rizzoli & Isles” and “Perception,” which were all subsidized by the state film program.
The former hospital also was home to one of Real to Reel’s most lucrative recent deals, for one-hour TNT medical drama “HawthoRNe,” which filmed there for seven months earlier this year.
Onyshko said the “HawthoRNe” booking is a main reason he expects the company’s revenue to remain steady this year at $3.5 million, despite fewer bookings than last year.
But, in an example of the vagaries of Hollywood, TNT canceled “HawthoRNe” in September. What’s more, the property was sold last week to a Sherman Oaks developer that plans to knock it down to build apartments.
Redoubling effort
The shaky business has Onyshko holding off on hiring at Real to Reel, which has seven full-time employees and seven independent contractors who manage specific projects.
“We haven’t needed to add any of the independent contractors we would have needed to add in prior years,” he said. “If filming were closer to average levels, there are five to seven positions that we’re not filling.”
These days, Onyshko is redoubling efforts to market his properties to location managers in person and by e-mail, and at events held by the Location Managers Guild of America in Hollywood. Real to Reel also markets its properties in production services newsletters.
While Onyshko has been pushing property owners to drop prices, he knows there’s a downside to it all.
“It’s less money to the local economy when we have to compete in that manner,” he said. “We’re losing the advantage of filming.”
